Complex Kid
by ChloeRumple
Summary: Completely fictional love story between American music legend, Tom Petty, as a young man, and a wealthy girl from his hometown of Gainesville, Florida. Takes place in the early 70s. Tom is a struggling musician who is taken with Violet, a girl he meets who shares his love of music. This was just an idea I had and thought it would be fun as a short story.
1. Chapter 1

**One- **_**Relentless**_

"Could you do me a favour?"

I looked up from where I was counting the cash inside the register. I had an entire hand full of bills, ones and fives. I was about half way through counting. Slightly annoyed, I wrote down where I was at on the corner of one of the bills and then looked up, out under my lashes.

On the other side of the counter, right in front of the register, stood a young man, with honey colored, blonde hair, reaching his shoulders around the back, but shorter in the front, bone straight. His eyes were light, blue with grey, and his face was slim, pale yellowy skin over delicate bones. He wore a pale blue shirt with a jean jacket over it. The collar of his shirt brushed against his thin hair.

I shrugged my shoulders at him. "What would that be?"

He slipped a bill across the counter at me. "Would you give an ice cream to the girl with the copper hair?"

"We don't usually do that sort of thing." I bent my head and tried to make it appear like I was counting again.

"Oh, no?"

"We're not a bar. You can't just buy things like buying drinks for girls."

"Not even the girl behind the counter?"

I looked up again and met his light eyes. They wrinkled around the edges. His thin mouth was tipped up into a smirk.

My hair was light auburn. The color of a new penny.

"Who are you?" I demanded. "I've never met you before and you just walk in here and try and…schmoose me while I'm working." I grabbed the money again to finish counting.

The boy rested his forearms on the counter and leaned on them. He clasped his hands together. His skin was close enough to mine that I could smell cologne or after shave. It was musky, but warm and slightly sweet at the same time. "If you would let me buy you that ice cream, you would know who I am," he said.

"I'm working and I don't even know your name."

"If I told you my name, would that change anything?"

I raised an eyebrow at him.

He said smoothly, "My name's Tom."

"I'm still working."

Tom straightened his spine and got off the counter. "There's no one here!" He held long fingered hands open and gestured to the empty dairy bar. It was a rainy afternoon in the winter time. Business was slow. "You won't even take ten minutes and give me the chance to buy you an ice cream?"

Slipping the money I was pretending to count between my fingers, I said nothing.

"Here." He pushed the money he had slipped onto the counter earlier even closer to me. "At least take something at the end of your day. On me."

I stuffed the rest of the money into the till and then slammed it shut. It latched with a small clang.

Tom huffed. "Fine." He turned, his boney shoulders pulled up around his ears, and then stuffed his hands into his pockets. He walked out the door, his back to me, the bell chiming his exit as it hit the swinging door.

My home was a large old farm house just outside of town. It had been in my father's family for years. He grew up in it, with a black woman as help. There was an old barn in the back with no animals, and a large garage were my father worked.

When I walked through the front door, Daddy was passed out in the living room, in front of the television, a bottle of beer on the table next to his chair. I could hear Momma in the kitchen, making dinner.

I was not in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment, so I rushed up the stairs to my room. I shut the door behind me and leaned against it with a sigh. It felt good to be home and by myself.

The air was warm in my room, but damp from the rain. The record player on my dresser crackled to life when I placed the needle on the vinyl and filled the humid air with a soft hum of Del Shannon. I had bought that album earlier in the week and I had been playing it ever since.

From my pocket, I pulled out the three dollar bills that Tom, the blonde boy, had slipped over the counter. I straightened them out and added the three dollars to my tip money. Then I noticed a phone number, written in black in, on one of the green pieces of paper. I wonder if it was Tom who had written it there, or if it had just been there before the bill even got into his hands.

Ignoring the phone number, I stuffed the money into the small box where I kept all my savings on top of my dressing table, under a compact of powder. I wanted to move out of this house, out of the choking old Victorian furniture, the haze of Momma's cigarettes and Daddy's sour scented breath. I didn't know where I was going to go, or with who, if anyone, but I knew here was not where I wanted to stay.

I tucked a strand of my hair behind my hair and looked at my reflection in the mirror on my dressing table. Why would this boy, who I did not know, who did not know me, try to get a date out of me? I was not ugly by any means, but I wasn't stunning or beautiful like other girls, even girl I knew from school and growing up with.

My body was rather thin, my hips being the widest part. My face was cut sharply, not round or soft. I had a square jaw, small nose, and large, almost owl-like green eyes. I was short and small, with loud copper locks a top my head.

There was no reason for any boy to come calling to me, or fancy me, or want to buy me ice cream. I was not that sort of girl. This Tom boy would just have to find someone else to chase after.

"Violet!" my mother called. "Come to dinner!"

I sighed and stopped Del's singing before I headed from my room and prepared myself for a chat of what happened at my job today and decided to put Tom right out of the conversation. There was no reason to discuss him nor any other boys.

Nothing would happen between Tom and I. And I would stop thinking about him, or so I hoped.

On my day off, I enjoyed going into town and my favorite place of all was the record store. I dressed in one of my best skirts, pink and pleated, falling past my knees, and a white buttoned blouse. I enjoyed making myself feel good when I went around town, even if I wasn't interested in anyone noticing.

The store sat on the main street, a little glass front building with red painted trim. It was my favorite place, where I always felt welcomed and content, where I was wanted and even though it was strange for a woman to be alone, I belonged there and felt safe inside the papered walls. I opened the door and entered the store from the sidewalk, stepping up and onto the carpeted floor.

The man behind the counter was a middle aged, balding man who knew me by my first name and who my mother hated. She hated him because I spoke with him regularly and he was twenty years older than me and married. He looked up when I walked inside and gave me a small smile. "Nice to see you, Violet."

"Thank you, Gary, you too."

I walked between the rows of vinyl and gazed at the covers. I liked the cover art of various albums, even if I wasn't interested in the music.

Finally, after I browsed around the store, walking past two other people looking as well, I settled on a section and started through it, looking over the large Bob Dylan section.

The albums flipped under my fingers as I pulled them towards me to see the one behind. I noticed that someone else, someone with very long fingers, was looking through the records across the bin from me. They were moving quickly, getting to the place I was at between the cardboard cases.

When their hands flipped the last record between us towards them, I paused, my hands freezing in front of me. I didn't know what to do. This person clearly didn't respect personal space but I didn't want to have to talk to them.

I looked up under my lashes at whoever was trying to be sly or slick, and standing before me, with that wheat colored hair, those blue eyes, and alabaster skin, was the boy from two days ago.

Tom stood across the bin from me, wearing that cheeky grin that fit his face so well, looking over at me, his head tilted slightly to one side.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two-**_**Scrape **_

"What are you doing here?" I hissed at Tom, leaning over the bin, gripping the cover of _Blonde on Blonde_.

"I saw you come in here," he replied simply. He looked the exact same as when he had come into the dairy bar, his blonde hair straight as could be, the same faded jean jacket over a shirt, today the shirt was red, and that smirk on his face.

"You're following me?" I kept my voice low, hoping no one else in the store would hear. But I was easily able to allow my irritation and fury to show through.

"I'm not following you. I just saw you come in here and thought I'd join you." He pulled an album from between two others. "Is this what you were looking for?" It was the latest Bob Dylan album, _Self Portrait_. It was exactly what I had been looking for.

"How did you know?"

"You skipped over everything else. This is his latest." He smiled a large, toothy smile, revealing perfectly straight teeth behind his lips. "Lucky guess."

"No," I retorted, "it's…your behaviour is completely out of line! You keep following me around, stalking me-"

"I'm not stalking you."

"Then leave me alone!" I realized my voice had raised over the course of our conversation, but I couldn't help myself. Without a second look, I darted from where I stood and hurried from the store, letting everyone watch me as I left. I felt embarrassed that I had created a scene, something to gawk at, but it really wasn't me who stirred up anything.

The door shut behind me and I started down the street, walking quickly back the way I had come.

I was about three buildings away from the record store when I heard, "Wait! Wait!" I didn't turn around. I bent my head and trudged on.

There was the sound of shoes hitting the concrete, quickly. I kept walking, but I came up short, stopping quickly as I could, when Tom wheeled around to face me, standing before me, his breath coming in slightly heavy. "Can you just listen to me, please?" he asked, holding his hands in front of him, a large, flat paper bag in one of them. "I'm not trying to bother you or follow you. I don't know where you live, I don't even know your name."

I started walking, trying to get around him. Tom cut in front of me again, walking backwards so that we remained face to face.

"I just wanted to try and talk to you, that's all. I don't even know your name."

"And I said no to everything." I kept walking, Tom walking backwards still, his face dangerously close to mine, but he was taller than me, making my eyes level with the hollow of his throat.

"You won't even give me a chance," he cried, and just as the words got out of his mouth, he tripped, his boots failing out from under himself, his arms waving in the air backwards. The bag in his hand flew from his fingers, hitting the sidewalk and skidding slightly towards the road, where it stopped on the curb. Tom hit the ground, right on his behind, with a small _oof!_ making me stop quickly to avoid falling on top of him.

He was on the pavement, sprawled out like a crab. He swore and shook his head. Then hit the concrete, frustrated, with his already scrapped palm.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, feeling, a slight bit of empathy towards him for the first time since I had seen him two days ago.

"Fine," Tom grumbled. He clambered to his feet, slowly, and then wiped his scraped and slightly bloody palms on his jeans, leaving brown speckles of drying blood behind. With his shoulders slumped, his displeasure as easy to read as an open book, he walked slowly to the curb, picked up the bag, walked back to where I stood, and handed it to me, his hand shaking slightly.

"I bought that for you," he said, his voice low. The cheekiness, the cockiness, pride and lightheartedness, was gone from him.

I took the paper bag from his wobbly hand and held it. Before I take out what was inside, Tom turned and again, with his hands in his pockets, he started away, walking quite slowly.

My eyes went from his back, to what was in my hand. I unfolded the top of the bag and slipped my hand in, gripping the cardboard of a record. I pulled the bag down, exposing just enough of the record to see what it was. _Self Portrait_. I stuffed it back into the bag and sighed. I had been saving for it for some time.

"Wait, Tom," I called softly, down the sidewalk.

He turned and looked at me over his slim shoulder.

I sighed deeply before diving in and saying, "My name's Violet, and…I'll go out with you, just once. I'm not promising any more than that."

His chin lifted from where he had been looking down at the ground under his feet and a small smile came over his face. "You really mean that?"

After a small pause, just to make sure, I nodded. "Just one though. That's all I can promise. I'll give you a chance."

He smiled larger, the happiness going all the way up to his eyes. "I'll pick you up tomorrow night? At seven?"

"Alright. Here." I pulled a pen from my bag and tore off a piece from the paper bag that my new album was in. I wrote my address down, using the record case behind the paper. I handed the written address to Tom.

His eyes scanned it and widened. "I know where that is." He nodded and then stuffed the piece of paper into his pocket, his face showing no evidence of its previous look of surprise.

"Okay." I nodded as well, not sure where to go from there.

"I'll see you then." He looked down at me and smiled, this smile completely kind, soft, not all sly nor smug. He looked to be genuinely pleased, his eye rounded and slightly wrinkled at the edges, his mouth tipped into a smile with no teeth, just soft satisfaction.

I couldn't help it, I smiled back.

When I arrived home, my father wasn't there. His truck was gone. I wondered if my mother had gone out with him, but I realized when I entered the house and smelt fresh smoke, that she was home, sitting in the dining room with an ashtray and the Sears catalog sitting before her.

I didn't get along well with either of my parents. They so easily shipped my brother off to the university a few years ago, but I was not allowed to do anything more than look for a suitable man to marry after I had graduated high school, where I forced into taking home ec. My job at the dairy bar was, in my mother's mind, something to keep me busy, until I was married off to a doctor or lawyer and had babies. I only got the job because she knew the owner. What she did not know was that I saving my money, to buy not only records, but maybe a car so that I could go somewhere else.

"I'm ordering from the catalogue," Momma said without looking up. "You need some new clothes for spring. I was thinking some pants would be a good idea." She meant well, she really did.

"Sure."

My mother was tall, thin, with brittle arms and legs. Her dark hair was piled atop her head in one round shape. Her face was boney, similar to my own. On her long, pointed nose sat a pair of golden framed glasses on a beaded chain.

"I won't be home tomorrow night," I said simply. I wanted to avoid too much prodding into what was happening tomorrow night. "I am going out." But I couldn't lie.

"Going out?" For the first time, her eyes looked up from the pages before her of men in shirts. "With who?"

I shrugged my shoulders and started for the kitchen. "Someone I met the other day."

"A boy?"

In the kitchen, I had avoided her piercing gaze. I pulled a glass from the cupboard and poured myself some milk from the fridge. "Yes," I called back to her.

The chair that she sat on creaked. She arrived in the kitchen as I sipped the milk. "Who is he?" she asked, her lips in a large grin as she leaned against the door frame.

"His name is Tom."

"Tom who?"

"I'll find out tomorrow. I don't know anything about him."

"You don't know where he's from or what he does?" Momma's eyes widened in horror. Her worst nightmare would be me marrying some hippie without a job or who wanted to be a rock star and had none of what she called 'drive' or 'sustainability'.

"I'm sure I'll find out."

"Well what does he look like?"

"You'll see tomorrow, Momma. He's picking me up here."

She smiled so large that she could have directed traffic with her teeth.

Tomorrow was going to be a rough day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three-**_**Flower Bouquet**_

I worked in the morning and then when I got home, my mother was positively ecstatic that I had a date and wanted me to wash up, do my hair, makeup and wear my best clothes.

"Momma!" I yelped rushing up the stairs. "It's nothing that important!"

I shut the door to my room and sighed. I could hear my parents talking. Momma had already told Daddy last night over the dinner table and he had looked over at me and asked, over his beer, who was this boy, how old, and so on and so forth. The usual questions, questions which I had no answers to. I didn't know Tom, but they could meet him when he came to pick me up.

The outfit I picked out was simple. I had a dress from the spring that my mother had bought me for family gatherings that would look just fine. The dress was plain navy blue with a large white collar and the hem hitting around my knees. I took a red cardigan to go with it and my brown leather bag. I put on my makeup, making my eyes stand out with more mascara than usual and putting on pink lipstick, something I only really did when I was going somewhere or doing something special.

The doorbell rang as I was just adding another coat of mascara. I felt my knees weaken even though I was sitting down in front of my dressing table.

It was seven-o-three. Tom was here and my mother would be answering the door.

"Oh hello!" Momma's voice floated up the stairs and through my open door, completely fruity and overly sweet. "You must be Tom. It's _so_ nice to meet you!"

Tom's low voice came after. It wasn't nearly as loud, or high, so it was difficult to hear what exactly he was saying. I did catch something that sounded like "Nice meeting you as well."

"Please, have a seat. Can I offer you a drink?"

They had moved to the living room, where I couldn't as easily here what was being said. Tom's voice was a low grumble, Momma's was high and shrill, introducing my father to him. "This is Violet's father, Joe. Joe, this is Tom."

There was lick in her voice that sounded slightly salty. Tom hadn't impressed her. I straightened my back, pleased, and then stood, checked myself in my large mirror one last time before I left my room.

"What do you do, Tom?" Daddy's booming voice asked.

I heard Tom's reply as I started down the stairs.

"I work as a grounds keeper at the university."

"Oh." I could just picture Momma's pinched face at that. "You don't go to the university?"

"No, that's not really my thing."

"You don't want-"

"Momma." I stepped through the entrance to the living room from the front hall and shoot my mother a tight lipped, piercing-eyed look that I hoped would shut her up. She sat in one of her antique chairs, near the window, facing me, while Daddy sat in his usual spot, the old chair that faced the television with his slipper clad feet on the foot stool in front of the chair, matching the pattern and lack of stuffing.

And sitting on the couch was Tom. He was facing my parents, his back to me. All I could see was the back of his blonde head.

But at my voice, he turned and stood in front of the couch. He wore black pants instead of his usual jeans, a blue gingham shirt, buttoned to his neck, and a black jacket over his shoulders. When he looked at me, his eyes widened as he stared at me, his face looking me up and down. In his hands, he held a bouquet of mixed pink and yellow flowers.

"Violet," he gasped. "You look beautiful."

My father gave a small snort, not bothering to remove his eyes from the black and white screen before him. My mother covered her mouth with her hand trying to disguise her small, pleased laugh.

"Thank you." I smiled.

Tom took a step closer and held out his right arm awkwardly with the flowers in his hand. "These are for you."

"Not for my mom?"

"Ha," he chuckled and grinned, bowing his head. "Next time."

From her perch, Momma stood and fluttered over to us. "I'll put these in some water." She reached her hands out and let Tom hand her the flowers. "They are beautiful." She sniffed them, to my embarrassment, and then said, "You two run off now." She headed towards the kitchen.

"Thank you, ma'am." Tom nodded.

"Have her home by eleven, no fooling around," Daddy grunted, still not looking away from his program.

"Of course." Tom turned to him, smiled, and then pursed his lips when he was ignored. He turned back to me. "You're ready?"

"Um hm."

"Alright then." He slapped his hands against his thighs and then stepped past me, to the front door, opening it for me and thankfully leaving my parents behind. I noticed then, his palms were still rough, with speckles of a bit of a blood brown, but then his fingertips were also scraped, deeper, with callouses on the tips. I had never seen fingers that looked like that before.

I stepped out into the cool evening air, letting myself relaxed now that there was an exterior wall between my parents and I. "I'm sorry," I said to Tom after he shut the door with a slight click, "about my parents. They can be…invasive."

He waved a hand in the air. "No, no. They're good people."

I narrowed my eyes at him as he gestured for me to descend the stairs down from the porch before him. "You just met them. They interrogated you."

"Better than my parents." He looked out the darkening sky. "At least yours care enough to be around."

I glanced over at Tom's face but he was looking towards the dirt driveway where a little blue Ford with a dent in the pack door, was parked near the house, behind Daddy's pickup.

"Decent car you have," I said, walking towards it.

"It's alright." Tom reached forward and opened the passenger side door for me. I slid into the leather bench seat and Tom went around the other side and sat down behind the wheel. "It's not a pretty car, but it works." He pushed the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life. "I don't have much money," he admitted, "and I honestly didn't realize that you are who you are." He drove through the turnaround in the drive way and then started for the road.

"What do you mean?"

"You and your family." He pulled onto the road before he went on, explaining. "I didn't realize you were Violent _Townsend_. I just saw you working and figured if you had a job, that maybe you were like me." He gripped the wheel with both hands.

"Like you?"

"Not rich."

"Oh. That doesn't really matter."

"Your father probably wouldn't be happy to have his daughter with someone like me." His shoulders were hunched and he kept his eyes firmly looking just outside the windshield, at the road ahead of, as we passed more farm houses, old plantations, pastures, and iron gates, heading from the country and into town.

"It's not up to him. And how did you know my name?"

"I've just heard of you, and I knew the house. I've heard that your family is one of the richest in town, that's all."

"I don't know your name."

"I told you it before."

"You said 'Tom', that was all. I can assume your full first name is Thomas, but other than that, how would I know?"

"My name's Thomas Earl Petty, okay?" He leaned his shoulders back a bit, relaxing his back against the leather of the seat. "Tom Petty, grounds keeper at the University of Florida."

"You never thought about going to the university?"

"No. School was never really my thing. I liked reading, and writing, that sort of thing. But math was too hard. I hated shop class. I actually…" he rubbed his mouth as the street lights of the city cast an orange glow on his pale face. He took his hand away, placing it back on the wheel. "I never finished high school."

"How long ago was that?"

"A few years ago. I almost finished, but what I wanted to do-high school wouldn't help me with. It was a waste of time for me. I almost finished, but after Christmas last year, I never went back. I'm nineteen."

"You're only a year older than I am." I looked out the window to see downtown, the streets lit up with neon lights flashing in windows in pink, blue, red, and yellow. "I finished school, but my parents wouldn't let me do anything else. My brother went to college, but I'm supposed to be finding a husband and all that instead."

Tom snorted a laugh as he parked outside a small restaurant with a red awning. "You're doing a great job with that." He shifted the gear into park and then when the car chucked down, he reached over with his right hand and patted my left shoulder. His fingers completely enveloped my shoulder. He patted it twice and then took his hand away, leaving the skin of my shoulder feeling warm underneath, as he turned the key in the ignition, turning the car off.

Opening the door, he climbed out and I copied him, to which made a face at me, scrunching up his lips as he shut the car door. "Supposed to let me do that," he grumbled.

"I'm a girl, not an invalid."

"Have you been here before?" Tom pointed to the front of the restaurant.

"No. We don't go out to eat much, which is a shame, because I really enjoy cooking that's not my mother's."

Tom grinned. "I heard it's good here, if it's not, blame the guy that told me that."

"Alright, I will."

Tom reached out and purposefully opened the door for me, a smug look on his face when I walked through. We waited at the front until a women sat us at a booth next to the front window, told us the specials, and then asked for our drink orders. We both ordered Coke.

I looked over the menu, reading the entrees and the prices. Tom may be just a ground keeper, but he was spending more money on me than any other man had. Then I remembered what he had said in the car, and so I looked up from the menu and asked, "So what is it that you really want to do?"

"Hmm?" Tom looked up from his menu, his jaw rested in his hand.

"You said before, in the car, that school was a waste of time because it wasn't helping you with what you really want to do. What is that?"

He looked away from me, back down at the menu. "It's nothing real important."

"It must be if you dropped out to peruse it."

"I told you, I didn't like school anyways."

"You don't want to tell me?"

"It's not that, I just-"

"Are you ready to order?" The waitress stood at the edge of our table, a pad of paper and pen in her hand.

"Go ahead." Tom gestured to me.

I ordered pasta, Tom got a steak, and once the waitress left, he steepled his fingers and toyed with the straw in his Coke.

"Why won't you tell me what you want to do?" I asked him, clenching my fingers in my lap. "Is it something bad? You want to be a mass murderer or a hit man? Drug dealer?"

He laughed and shook his head. "No, not like that."

"Then what?"

"Your parents would hate me for it."

"So?"

He leaned back against the seat, placed his hands on the table and linked his fingers together. "You can't laugh at me."

"You want to be a clown or something?"

"Something like that." He was smiling.

"Just tell me."

He bent his head in a smile, pushed his hair from his face and then looked up at me. "Me and a few friends, we have a band. We want to go to California eventually. We're…we're trying to be rock stars, I guess."

"Oh. Wow." I wasn't sure what you were supposed to say when someone told you they wanted to be a rock star, rich, famous.

His eyes fell and he rested his chin in his hand, his elbow on the table. "I knew this wasn't a good idea anymore, as soon as I picked you up." He ran his finger over the rim of his glass of Coke.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I'm a dumb kid, who dropped out of school. I live in a little house, in a not so nice area. I work as groundskeeper to pay for my guitars. Before that I got fired from my other job for being a fool. You come from a different place, that's all. You should be out with someone who's like that. Who could buy you a house right now."

"You think that's what I want?" I snapped at him. "Some guy with gelled hair who will let me decorate some big mansion and stay home all day and have his babies?"

His eyes widened at me, and he took his chin from his hand and straightened his spine. "I don't know what you want. But I'm not stupid. I know that you're a different than I am."

"That doesn't matter. I'm different than you because my family has more money, but other than that, well, I'm really not sure. But I know you like the music that I like. I know you're not what I'm trying to get away from. You are more of what I want than some wealthy, boring man."

"You know," his face took on a faraway gaze as he looked just over my head, "I didn't just come up to you because I thought you were pretty, or anything like that. Not that…I do think you're pretty, but that wasn't all." He looked back down at his hands on the table, catching my eye as his worked their way down. "I saw you at the record store, a few days before I talked to you at your job. You bought Del Shannon. I was…I was really impressed by that. Most women don't go and buy music, let alone have that sort of taste in it. Then I saw you working and I decided to try talking to you."

I felt my palms sweating a little and rubbed them on my dress.

"You turned me down, and that was…funny to me. Most girls jump at a date, not with me, but they like the idea. You wouldn't accept it from just anyone."

My knees felt slightly weakened at his words. His small speech was refreshingly charming, sweet, and genuine. "You know," I started, slowly, "hanging out with a musician, someone who wants to be a rock star, that sounds pretty good to me."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four-**_**Swings**_

The rest of dinner went well. The food was good. Tom insisted on dessert even though I was quite full from dinner. We ended up sharing a slice of cake, talking about Tom's band, how he had built it with a friends from school, but it was still a work in progress. That turned into talk of school. Tom asked me about the subjects I liked, which were similar to his interests. I had hated home ec, enjoyed reading, and history, hated math. We discovered that despite the fact we had to different schools, we knew a few of the same people, not well, but were acquainted with.

After Tom paid the bill, we headed outside in the cool night air. I pulled my cardigan around my shoulders. The stars had come out, shining brightly even over the glow of the city lights.

Tom turned to be before we got to his car. "Your dad said have you home by elven, it's not even nine yet. Would you like to go for a walk?"

"Okay."

We started down the sidewalk, walking side by side past store fronts, restaurants, bars, and offices. Most the stores and services were closed, but the bars hummed with life, music coming from behind the windows.

"Do you ever play in bars?" I asked.

"A bit. I can't drink in the bars, but I've played in them."

"What do you do in your band? I man, like what do you play and all that?"

He smiled and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Well, I play guitar. I took a few lessons and kind of taught myself to play, in my shed in the yard mostly. Still drove my parents nuts though."

I chuckled.

"I'm the lead singer too. So I'm the front man of the band."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Really? That's pretty impressive. What's your band called?"

"We don't know yet." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "There's been some dispute over it. I'd like it to be," he stuck his hand out and gestured through the air, punctuating each word, "Tom Petty and the…something's!"

"I can see where everyone else may not agree with that."

"You think that's a bad idea?"

"I don't know. I'm not an expert on band names."

"Who is?"

The walk had taken us down the street to where it had changed to become quieter, a few homes peppered in with the shops, less lighting, more trees. There was a small park cut into the block, with a few dogwood trees surrounding the playground, with a rusted slide and set of four swings.

"Once I broke my arms on those swings." Tom pointed over at them. "I jumped from the swing when I was eight, I think. I put my arms out to break my fall and snapped one of them."

"Ouch."

"I had a cast for weeks. I had to take a bath with it held over the edge of the tub."

"I've never broken anything, and I've never been to parks like this. I have a tire swing in my back yard."

"You've never been to a park?" Tom stopped walking and looked at me.

I shook my head.

"Well then, we'll have to change that." He tilted his head towards the park. "Come on, I'll race you."

"We're adults," I replied.

"I'll give you a head start."

"Tom…"

"You're going to lose your head start! I'm going to start running, in five, four, three, two, one…" He started off at a run, and he was fast.

I shook my head as his childlike behaviour, but then I rushed after him. Being much slower, I reached the swings after he was already swinging, pumping his long, gangly legs, and pushing himself higher and higher.

"Come on," he called to me as he swung past, forwards then backwards.

A reluctant sigh came from my lips, but I smiled and sat down on the seat of the swing anyways, tucking my dress under my thighs and gripping the metal chains. I pumped my legs the same way and soon, Tom and I were swinging together, at different paces, but every once and while we would meet up and be at the same place in the arch of our swings.

I started to laugh. We were acting like children, but what was the harm in that? It was dark, there was no one around, no one to see us or care what we were doing. Basked in the glow of the orangey-yellow street light, I felt like I was truly enjoying myself and having fun. I felt free.

All of a sudden, at the front of his arc on the swing, Tom let go of the chains of the swing and leapt out, onto the sand below with a small thud. He landed on his feet, wobbled forward a few steps, his arms failing out to catch his balance. When he was steady, standing straight, he turned back to me, where I had slowed my swing, wearing a grin that lit up the night.

I took my hands from the chains and clapped for him. "Didn't break anything that time."

"No." He stuck out his chest proudly, then walked to where I was still slowing my swing. His eyes watched me go back and forth and when I slowed to where I was barely swinging more than a foot out, Tom reached out and took hold of the swing, stopping me. The swing gave its resistance against his hand, then stopped completely.

He looked down at me with his light eyes, a small, content smile on his face. "You're having fun," he stated simply.

"I don't think I ever said that."

"You don't have to."

I toyed with the hem of my dress against my legs. "I'm sorry for before. For being…well rude to you when you tried to talk to me."

Tom shrugged. "I never really expected you to agree to this."

"I never expected to either."

He laughed, bending his shoulders and waist, his blonde hair getting awfully close to my face. When he straightened up, he still wore a large grin. "Aren't you glad you did?"

I stuck my chin out. "Maybe."

He chuckled again and then let go of the chain of the swing and stepped back. "I should get you home soon. The earlier the better. That and a haircut and maybe your parents will let me do this again."

"It's not to them." I hopped off the swing and we walked back to where Tom's car was parked. He rushed around to the passenger side door and opened it for me, gesturing for me to sit. I did so and he got behind the wheel and we started back out of town.

"So," I began as the beam of the headlights lay on the road before us, "am I ever going to get to listen to your music?"

"That depends, because I think that would require you seeing me again. Maybe even a second date."

I felt a warmth behind my breast bone that told me what I was about to say was a good idea. "I think I can maybe do that."

My house came into view as Tom said, "How about we see a movie or something?"

"That sounds nice."

"And we're trying to get a gig for Saturday night. If the place isn't too rough, I could bring you. But not if it's dangerous or anything."

"You think I'd be afraid?"

"No, I don't think you're afraid of anything. I think I don't want you somewhere where I am scared of being skinned alive. We've played some tough places." He pulled into the drive and cut the engine. "If that doesn't work out, I'll play for you. I promise."

He got out of the car and again I copied him.

"Stop doing that!" he whined, stomping his foot on the dirt.

I just rolled my eyes and we started for the porch. At the front door, just outside of it, I stopped and stood, Tom standing before me. There was the soft glow of the television in the living room and the light in my parents' bedroom was on upstairs. They had also turned on the light right inside the front door and the porch lights, which cut long shadows of Tom and I standing together on the porch and made deep shadowed hallows in his cheek bones.

"Well," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, "I hope you had a good time. I did."

I held my hands together in front of me. "I did." I looked up and met his eyes. "I really did."

Tom smiled down at me. "I'm glad. I was expecting to drag you along the entire time."

I chuckled. "No, you didn't have to."

"So I'll see you later on this week? We'll do the movie?"

"Yeah, but wait." I opened my bag and dig around in the bottom of it until I found a pen. "Here." I held out my hand and the pen and Tom gave me his own hand. I took it in mine, palm up, where I could easily see the slight scrapes on the heel of his hand. I pressed my pen lightly on the fleshy part of where his thumb met his palm and wrote my phone number for him, slowly and carefully. His hand was cool in mine. "There you go." I let go of him. "You can call me one day. Maybe tomorrow?"

He smiled down at his hand and then let it fall to his side. "Alright. I can do that." His eyes went to my front door and then back to me. "You should probably head in, go see your parents and all."

"I guess," I sighed.

"Alright, well, I'll try to call you tomorrow."

"Okay."

He reached out then, his hand gently on my upper arm, not holding it or pressed, just resting there, against the sleeve of my cardigan. Then he leaned in, slowly, and his lips pressed as lightly as his hand, against my left cheek, right on my cheekbone. And then they were gone, as quick as hummingbird sucking from a flower. He took his hand away too and straightened up.

"I'll see you soon then," he said with a smile. "Good night, Violet." He turned and started down the stairs and I watched him go until he got to his car, where he looked back at me over the opened driver's side door, still wearing his smile. He gave a small wave, I waved back, and then climbed into his car and I opened the door into the house.

And of course, Momma was waiting with her pestering questions as soon as the door was shut behind me.

"Violet?" she called down from the top of the stairs, where she stood with curlers in her hair and her robe on. "How was your night?" she asked me with a grin.

"It was fine." I started up the stairs, unable to avoid the inevitable.

"Just fine? Where did he take you? What did you do?"

"We went to dinner."

"Just dinner? That seems like a long time for only dinner. Where did you go? Was it expensive?"

"Momma," I held up a hand, "it was good, okay. Please, I'm tired. I'm going to get ready for bed now."

"Alright." She bit down on her lower lip. "I guess we'll talk tomorrow."

"Sure."

"Did you have fun at least?"

I opened my bedroom door, but before I stepped in, I turned back to her and said, "I did. I really like him." And then, when I went into my room and shut my door, I saw the bright flower bouquet sitting on my dressing table in a vase with water and I felt my left cheek go warm.


End file.
